postal systemthe institution—almost invariably under the control of a government or quasi-government agency—that makes it possible for any person to send a letter, packet, or parcel to any addressee, in the same country or abroad, in the expectation that it will be conveyed according to certain established standards of regularity, speed, and security. The service is paid for in advance by the sender according to a relatively simple scale of fees based on weight and, in some countries, on speed of service required. Prepayment is ordinarily made by means of postage stamps, franking machine impression, or printed indication of postage paid; payment is not usually required of the addressee.

It may seem tedious to catalog at such length characteristics that are familiar to everyone. Their very familiarity, however, and the consequent unthinking acceptance of them make it important to emphasize that until recently postal systems lacked many of these features. Although the basic need for a system to exchange written communications has been felt by all human societies and has been met in many ways, the evolution of varied postal systems adopted by different societies through the centuries into the basically similar pattern of today’s state monopoly service has been a long and difficult process.

Today the governments of many countries use their postal systems to provide a range of services that often have no direct connection with the traditional function of exchanging letters. To provide for the collection, transport, and delivery of letters throughout a country, it has been necessary to establish a network of post offices extending into the remotest areas. Such a network of offices, staffed by agents of the state, provides an efficient banking service in areas in which it would be uneconomic for a commercial or state bank to establish a branch office. Many governments also pay various social security benefits—such as pensions and family allowances—through vouchers that can be cashed at post offices. In some countries post offices also collect certain taxes, normally through the sale of licenses and revenue or tax stamps. In fact, a wide range of ancillary services is provided through the postal system. In some African and Asian countries, for instance, the postal system helps distribute antimalarial drugs. While the variety of such services clearly reflects the ever-increasing use made of postal systems throughout the modern world, they lie outside the scope of this article, which concentrates on the traditional postal or mail services.

Postal operations and management

The raw material of the postal services, always a single object that demands individual treatment, is something sent by one person (or entity) to another who may be anywhere in the world. Letters and parcels in all shapes and sizes are subject only to the limits of weight and dimension prescribed by postal legislation. Yet, if postal services are to be efficient and economical, these items must be mass-processed, as far as is possible. Thus, the basic function of postal organization is to convert the individual item as rapidly as possible into something that can be handled on a bulk basis, ensuring, however, that it finally regains its individual status.

The collection and sorting of individual items by the most economic method, concentrating together all items that are going to the same place or in the same direction, involves the use of local transport, usually operated by the postal services themselves, and sorting offices. The size of the sorting office depends on local requirements, but some are, in fact, large centres that handle several million items a day and employ thousands of personnel. Certain ancillary operations are involved, such as the canceling (by machine in all except the smallest offices) of stamps that have served to prepay the postal charge.

The next stage is to transport the grouped items to different destinations that may be intermediate sorting offices, perhaps a railway sorting car. Items are combined by further sorting with mail from other sources to permit grouping the mails for final destinations.

The third stage is the arrival of the mail at the sorting office of the final destination, where it is sorted systematically. The items finally recover their identity and are grouped for delivery to the individual address. In most countries, delivery is on a house-to-house basis, although boxes at a local post office are sometimes used.

All stages have to be planned and dovetailed to meet an overall standard of performance. The transport of mail between sorting offices is normally by services not necessarily directly operated by the post office—i.e., by truck, bus, train, marine shipping, or air services. In some countries, however, the administration operates its own air service, usually by night, to supplement the public services. Post-office counter services (i.e., the public offices that existed originally as depots where the public could buy stamps, make inquiries, and post and collect correspondence) have in many countries gone beyond the role of accessory to the postal service proper and pose their own problems of organization.

Postal services require extensive manpower. Many countries are striving to mechanize or even automate sorting, transport, and counter processes. Postal organization depends largely on geography; large agglomerations of population present the greatest problems. Furthermore, geography usually determines the routing of mails and the intermediate steps between the posting and destination offices. Traffic problems have forced postal managers, through the years, to develop their own approach to the operational aspects of postal organization. They developed their own work-study methods and operational research techniques long before these terms were invented. Apart from postal operations as such, postal management is concerned with the efficient administration and deployment of large bodies of manpower, the organization of large transport fleets, many aspects of property management, and financial and economic problems, particularly in an increasing number of countries where the postal services are expected to depend on their postal revenue in order to meet all of their costs (including those related to capital expenditure). Computer technology is increasingly exploited as a management aid.

In this connection, many of the developed and developing countries have come to realize that postal services often operate within a commercial market where competition can be fierce and efficiency is the watchword. With the adoption of marketing and sales techniques, new services emphasizing speed, convenience, and reliability have been introduced. One such service is express mail, known under different service names according to the country (Express Mail in the United States, Datapost in Great Britain and Germany). At additional cost, this service, in which about half the UPU membership participates, provides expedited conveyance and individualized priority handling of correspondence and goods.

History

Message-relay systems of the ancient world

Since good communications were clearly essential for governing the extensive empires of the ancient world, it is not surprising that among the earliest historical references to postal systems were those concerning Egypt about 2000 BC and China under the Chou dynasty 1,000 years later. It was probably in China that a posthouse relay system was first developed and was brought to a high state of development under the Mongol emperors. The great Persian Empire of Cyrus in the 6th century BC also employed relays of mounted messengers, served by posthouses. The system was favourably described by the Greek historians Herodotus and Xenophon. The admiration of the Greeks was natural since their political divisions inhibited the growth of a coherent postal system, although each city-state possessed its corps of messengers.

The development of Rome from a small city-state into a vast empire embracing most of the known world brought with it the necessity for reliable and speedy communications with the governors of distant provinces. This need was met by the cursus publicus, the most highly developed postal system of the ancient world. The relay stages of the cursus publicus, established at convenient intervals along the great roads of the empire, formed an integral part of its complex military and administrative system. The speed with which messengers were able to travel during the peak of the administration was not to be rivaled in Europe until the 19th century: it has been claimed that more than 170 miles (270 kilometres) could be covered in a day and a night. The maintenance of the cursus publicus required a high degree of organization; an inspectorial system existed to control its operation and prevent abuse for private ends.

The fall of the Roman Empire in the west during the 5th century did not completely destroy the cursus publicus. Its advantages were evident to the new barbarian rulers; some, such as Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who ruled Italy from AD 493 to 526, are known to have maintained the essentials of the Roman postal system within their own domains. Even in the early 9th century, under the Carolingian Empire, the vestiges of the cursus publicus appear to have persisted, and posthouses were maintained. While the service did not follow a regularly organized pattern, it was at least reasonably frequent. The continued decay of the Roman roads, the increasing unwillingness of communities bordering the roads to support the expenses of the system, and the progressive political fragmentation of Europe, however, caused all traces of the Roman postal system to disappear.

The cursus publicus fared better in the Byzantine Empire because its provinces were eventually absorbed into the Islāmic Empire. The substitution of one centralized imperial regime for another meant that the cursus publicus could be incorporated into a similar Arabian postal system based in Baghdad.

The pre-Columbian civilizations of America, responding to the same needs as the imperial states of Asia and Europe, also evolved relay systems, limited to foot messengers. In the Inca Empire, posthouses were maintained at frequent intervals along the remarkable road network, and a like system probably served the Mayan civilization for more than 1,000 years.

Growth of business correspondence in the Middle Ages

The end of the reign of the last Carolingian king in 987 marked the beginning of several centuries of confusion in Europe, in which it is difficult to trace any postal system worthy of the title. Since the kings of the period were constantly struggling to assert their authority over their unruly feudal vassals, the strong central authority that sustained most postal systems was lacking. The uncertain political situation did not favour the creation of a regulated postal service, though it necessitated frequent contact between the kings and vassals and among the great princes. They, along with other powerful institutions—the municipalities, the religious orders, and the universities (notably in Paris)—started to maintain corps of messengers to serve their particular needs.

One of the more significant trends of the later Middle Ages was the development of international commerce and, with it, the growth of business correspondence. Many corporations or guilds established messenger systems to allow their members to maintain contacts with customers. Notable among these was the so-called Butcher Post (Metzger Post), which was able to combine the carrying of letters with the constant traveling that the trade required.

The mercantile corporations of Italy provided the most extensive and regular postal system of this period. Of particular importance were the links maintained from the mid-13th century between the great Italian commercial centres, such as Florence, Genoa, and Siena, and six important annual fairs held in the Champagne area of northern France. Two fixed dispatches were made to each of these fairs: the first to carry orders and commissions and the second to effect settlements. The service was carefully regulated. Conditions of acceptance, scales of payment, and timetables were laid down; the route was fixed, and hostels were maintained along the route. Since the Champagne fairs were attended by merchants from all over Europe, the postal system provided a valuable international link.

Italian business interests were also responsible for the only regular extra-European postal link of this period, between Venice and Constantinople. The extent and importance of Venetian business correspondence may be gauged from the fact that in 1320 the king of Persia accorded its couriers the right of free passage throughout his domains.

Russia shared in the general European trend toward the development of postal services in the 13th century. Horses and drivers for the transport of couriers were kept at regular staging posts to provide the so-called carriage express, which gradually developed into an organized system for the exchange of letters.

Growth of the post as a government monopoly

Institutional postal systems that developed during the later Middle Ages also conveyed letters between private persons, with or without official sanction and for a substantial fee in either case. Initially, such letters were relatively few. Outside the institutions with their own postal services, the number of literate people having interests that ranged beyond their own neighbourhoods was small.

In the late 15th century, however, the trend toward improved postal services was reinforced by Gutenberg’s printing press (c. 1450) and the expansion of education. The growth of demand made letter carrying a profitable business, leading to the rise of private undertakings—the majority, like the Swiss Stumpelbotten, purely local in scope. Some, like the Paar family in Austria, developed postal organizations on a national scale. By far the most famous and extensive of such systems was that built up by the Thurn and Taxis family, who originally came from Bergamo near Milan, Italy. Under the patronage of the Habsburg emperors, they became the organizers of an extensive network of postal routes linking the imperial possessions. Their system developed throughout the 16th century until it covered most of Europe, using 20,000 couriers to operate a relay system that was speedy, efficient, and highly profitable.

Although the remnants of the Thurn and Taxis postal system survived in Germany up to 1867, it was essentially out of keeping—like the empire and the petty German states it served—with the main trend of development in Europe, the rise of nation-states with strong central governments. The first reflection of this trend in the postal sphere was the establishment of efficient national systems of relay posts under the control of the state. In France, Louis XI set up a Royal Postal Service in 1477 employing 230 mounted couriers. In England, a Master of the Posts was appointed by Henry VIII in 1516 to maintain a regular postal service along the main roads radiating from London. Neither of these systems was comprehensive, nor were they intended to serve the public. The security and regularity of the service along certain routes, however, inevitably resulted in an increasing amount of unofficial correspondence being carried. After initial attempts to prevent this practice in France, its fiscal advantages were realized, and the carrying of private mails was legalized about 1600. The basis of a real public service was not created until 1627, when fees and timetables were fixed and post offices established in the larger cities. In Britain, a separate public service was set up in 1635 by a royal proclamation “for the settling of the letter-office of England and Scotland.” Thomas Witherings, a London merchant, was given the task of organizing regular services to run by day and night along the great post roads.

In both countries, these state systems naturally began to develop into monopolies since such an evolution was seen by rulers as advantageous both to the security and to the revenues of the state. In England, the establishment of state posts along the principal roads was accompanied by the suppression, under the royal monopoly, of private and municipal posts, although “common carriers” were still permitted to convey letters on routes not covered by the royal system.

In 1672 France declared postal services to be a state monopoly under which operating rights were sold. Private undertakings that had established legal rights in this field were allowed to continue, but private messenger systems were eventually forced out of business by state competition or were bought out. In 1719 the University of Paris, the most important private competitor, gave up its last postal privileges in return for substantial compensation.

There was still opportunity for private enterprise to succeed by introducing services that were not at that time provided by the state systems. It was in this way that an important step in postal history, the establishment of local collection and delivery services in the great cities of London and Paris, was taken. London was the first city to benefit from an urban service when one William Dockwra set up his Penny Post in 1680. Striking features of the scheme were that letters were prepaid and stamped to indicate place of posting and the time they had been sent out for delivery. Deliveries were made almost hourly. Dockwra’s scheme was so successful that he was prosecuted for infringing the state monopoly, and his service was closed down in November 1682, only to be reopened by the government. Not until 1759 was a similar local service introduced in Paris. It too was quickly absorbed by the state postal system; but its originator, Claude-Humbert Piarron de Chamousset, was paid compensation. Thus, the state monopolies expanded their scope, happily combining an improved service to the public with greater profitability.

The pace of postal progress in England during the later 18th century was accelerated by remarkable economic growth and a consequent demand for better mail services to the growing commercial and manufacturing centres. The most striking improvements came as the result of an extensive program of road building that began about 1765, paving the way for the era of the stagecoach. These were first used by the post office in 1784 and rapidly superseded the mounted postboys on the main routes. They began by averaging six or seven miles an hour, but continuing improvements in the roads and in the design of the vehicles pushed this up to 10 miles an hour in the 1830s. With the stagecoaches making possible a general reorganization of the entire system of mail circulation, letters could be delivered the morning after posting in towns more than 120 miles from London. A carefully regulated postal service—unprecedented for its standards of speed, frequency, and security—was evolved during this period.

Despite the disruptive effects of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, great progress was made throughout Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in improving the speed and regularity of postal service and in providing internal delivery services for most of the larger cities. In the United States, too, postal services expanded at a remarkable rate: in 1789 only 75 post offices existed, but 40 years later there were more than 8,000.

Rowland Hill’s reforms

The publication in 1837 of Post Office Reform: Its Importance and Practicability, by Rowland Hill (later Sir Rowland Hill), a British educator and tax reformer, is justly regarded as one of the most important milestones in postal progress. Based on an exhaustive study of the cost structure of postal operations, it demonstrated conclusively that conveyance charges were an insignificant factor in the total cost of handling a letter. The then current intricate charging scales based on distance were shown to be irrelevant: they inflated operating costs by requiring a host of clerks to apply them and to prepare complicated interoffice accounts. He also realized that another major item in the current cost structure—the collection of money payments on delivery—was easily avoidable. Hill’s solution was a uniform rate of postage, regardless of distance, and prepayment of postage by means of adhesive stamps sold by the post office. Hill proposed a basic rate of one penny for each half ounce, calculating the “natural cost of distribution” to be slightly less than this. The cheapest current rate of postage was fourpence, and the average charge 6 14 pence (11.56 cents).

Not surprisingly, Hill’s proposals rapidly gained strong support: popular agitation for the “penny post” overcame initial political disinterest, and the uniform rate and a system of prepayment by stamps were introduced in 1840. The originality of Hill’s proposal for an adhesive postage stamp has been questioned but is irrelevant in considering the overall merits of his work. The significance of his reforms lies not only in the fact that they brought the post within the means of the mass of the people but also in the less obvious way in which they gave the postal system the technical capacity to deal with the vastly increased demand for postal service that ensued. The radical simplification of postal organization and methods characterizing Hill’s reforms are the key to the speed and economy with which modern postal systems in many countries handle tens of millions of letters daily.

The chief features of Hill’s system were gradually adopted in varying degrees by other countries throughout the world, first among which were Switzerland and Brazil in 1843.

The introduction of uniform cheap rates of postage for letters was accompanied by the establishment of even lower tariffs for newspapers (carried free in some countries) and for printed matter (e.g., the British “Book Post” of 1848). These reduced rates were perhaps originally intended to favour the spread of education but quickly expanded, under the vigorous pressure of vested interests, to cover all sorts of commercial documents, advertising matter, magazines, etc. An inexpensive form of correspondence, the postcard, first introduced by Austria in 1869, was soon adopted by most other countries.

The general postal reforms of the mid-19th century ensured maximum benefit from the technological progress in transport in the great age of the railway and the steamship. These new modes of conveyance permitted a far speedier, more regular, and more reliable mail service, both internally and internationally. Railways in particular had a marked effect on the organization of postal work: instead of merely using trains to carry mailbags more speedily, postal administrations soon introduced the practice of sorting the letters in transit, using specially adapted railway cars. This greatly multiplied the advantages of railway conveyance. The first traveling, or railway, post offices ran in 1838 between Birmingham and Liverpool and London and Preston. By the end of the century, Britain, many continental European countries, the United States, and India had built up a complex network of such services, allowing the delivery of letters the day after mailing at distances three or four times as great as had been possible with the stagecoach, exceeding 400 miles in some cases.

International postal reform: the Universal Postal Union

The advent of the steamship and the railway had provided the opportunity for speedier international postal services, and the expansion of commerce ensured a growing demand for such facilities. Unfortunately, serious obstacles to the free exchange of international mails existed. Postal relations between states were the subject of bilateral postal treaties that had multiplied alarmingly during the 19th century. Most large European states were party to at least a dozen treaties by the 1860s. Such treaties necessitated the maintenance of detailed accounts between the countries concerned. Owing to the bewildering variety of currencies and units of weight and measurement then in use, the accounts attained a complexity described by a contemporary postmaster general of the United States as “almost beyond belief.” Understandably, the users of the post suffered from this chaotic situation and from the high international postage rates that were its natural result.

The first practical step toward reform did not come until May 1863, when the delegates of 15 European and American postal administrations met at the Paris Postal Conference, convening at the suggestion of the U.S. postmaster general. The conference established important general principles for the simplification of procedures, which were adopted as a model for subsequent bilateral treaties by the countries concerned.

The final step required the embodiment of these principles in a formal international treaty and the creation of an organization to administer them. An example was set by another conference at Paris two years later, which established the International Telegraph Union. Similar developments in the postal field were delayed by the advent of the American Civil War and the Franco-German War.

In 1868, however, a plan for a general postal union was put forward by the director of posts of the North German Confederation. Eventually, an international postal congress met, on Sept. 15, 1874, in Bern. It was attended by representatives of 22 states, all European except for Egypt and the United States. On October 9 a “Treaty concerning the Establishment of a General Postal Union” was signed. It was implemented on July 1, 1875, when the General Postal Union came into being. This title was changed in 1878 to the Universal Postal Union (UPU), and the basic treaty was renamed the Universal Postal Convention. The treaty provides a uniform framework of rules and procedures for the exchange of international mails. The union grew rapidly, increasing its membership to 55 within 10 years. By 1914, when China was admitted, it included almost all independent countries. The scope of the union’s activities also expanded. In addition to its primary role, it gradually extended its functions to cover other international services provided by postal administrations, such as money orders (1878), parcel post (1885), postal checks (1920), cash on delivery (1947), and savings banks (1957). The UPU has been a specialized agency of the United Nations since 1948.

Development of airmail

Balloon posts, apart from those organized during the sieges of Paris (1870) and Przemyśl (1915), for the most part only carried souvenir mail, owing to the balloons’ uncontrollability. Airships overcame this problem but, again, did not establish themselves as a regular means of mail transport. It was only through the development of the airplane in the early decades of the 20th century that airmail truly came into its own. Certain experiments had been undertaken before World War I, such as airmail service between Hendon, on the northwestern outskirts of London, and Windsor in 1911 to mark the coronation of George V and flights between Paris and Bordeaux in 1913. Regular flights did not begin in the United States until 1918, and it was not until 1919, when the reliability of airplanes had considerably improved, that the first regular international service was introduced—between London and Paris. Other European links soon followed. On the long-distance continental and intercontinental routes airmail demonstrated its clear superiority over all surface transport. Technical factors delayed progress in opening up longer routes. The first American transcontinental airmail flight took place in 1920, but regular service did not begin until 1924. In 1926 a service between Egypt and Karāchi began and was linked to London in 1929. It was extended to Singapore by 1933 and to Australia in 1934. It was not until 1939 that a regular air service across the North Atlantic was launched with the takeoff of the Yankee Clipper, an American seaplane, on May 20.

While the growing availability of air flight did not affect basic postal organization as profoundly as the railways, its advantages of speed and operational reliability have been exploited in different ways since the 1920s. Prior to World War II, a number of European countries adopted the practice of forwarding letters to distant destinations at no extra cost to the sender (such as British mails sent to most parts of the British Empire). The consistently high costs of airmail curtailed this trend after the war. During the mid-1960s the UPU, in response to the continuing increase of aircraft capacity, adopted the policy of maximizing air conveyance of mail. In the mid-1970s, the concept of “surface air-lifted” (SAL) mails was developed in conjunction with the International Air Transport Association (IATA). This arrangement allows some mails to receive, for little or no surcharge, speedier transmission than by surface, but without the priority of fully surcharged mails. Use of SAL varies from country to country.

For individual correspondence, the most practical and inexpensive form of airmail remains the compact aerogram, which was introduced in Britain during World War II as a convenient way of writing to overseas military personnel. It consists of a sheet of lightweight paper suitably folded and gummed on all sides. Recognized by the UPU, the aerogram is available in most countries.

Advanced communications technology

Rapidly advancing computer and data transmission technologies of the late 20th century are being felt far more widely within the postal sector than were previous advances, such as improved roads, the railway, and the airplane. Although the latter enabled postal services to reform or enhance existing services, today’s technologies go further by providing alternatives to the letter in the form of electronic messaging networks and electronic data-processing techniques to improve administrative efficiency.

National postal systems

United States

Although the first official reference to overseas mail arrangements (concerning the receipt of overseas mail at Fairbanks’ Tavern in Boston) dates to 1639, little real progress was made in building a postal system in colonial America until the appointment of Benjamin Franklin, formerly postmaster at Philadelphia, as deputy postmaster general for the American Colonies in 1753. Through diligent personal survey and inspection, he provided a more extensive, frequent, and speedier mail service, both within the Colonies and to England. Franklin built a sound foundation for the postal service in the United States, and, fittingly, he became its first postmaster general in 1775.

Postal service expanded rapidly after independence: annual revenue increased from $37,935 in 1790 to $1,707,000 by 1829, when the postmaster general first became a member of the Cabinet. The heavy cost of establishing a postal structure to keep pace with the remarkable economic progress of the country and the accelerating extension of its settled area caused expenditure to rise even faster than revenue. The trend toward annual postal deficits, which began in the 1820s, often exceeded an annual figure of $5,000,000 later in the 19th century.

By 1901, however, this expenditure had produced remarkable results. The accessibility, quality, and range of services provided had improved immeasurably. The number of post offices stood at a peak of 76,945. Postage rates had been considerably reduced with the gradual adoption of the principles of Rowland Hill: a single uniform rate regardless of distance was adopted in 1863 (after an interim period with two rates since 1845), and postage stamps were introduced in 1847. Free collection services came with the provision of street letter boxes in 1858. A free delivery service was established in 1863, covering 49 cities and employing 440 letter carriers. By 1900 the service was provided at 796 offices by 15,322 carriers. The rural free delivery (RFD) service was introduced in 1896 and town delivery in 1912. These delivery services have greatly expanded their scope. The vast majority of mail is delivered by carriers, about one-tenth through post-office boxes, and only a small fraction at windows or counters.

The range of services available to the public has also grown steadily since the first supplementary postal service, registered mail, was introduced in 1855. The major milestones in this progress were postal money order service (1864); international money orders (1867); special delivery (1885); parcel post, with its accessory collect on delivery (COD) and insurances services (1913); and certified mail (1955), which provides proof of posting for items without intrinsic value. In 1911 a postal savings system was inaugurated, reaching a peak of more than 4,000,000 accounts in 1947. A decline to less than 1,000,000 depositors caused the service to be discontinued in 1966. Mail was formally divided into three classes in 1863, and a fourth was added in 1879. First-class, or letter, mail (called letter post in the United Kingdom) is the basis of the postal service monopoly and, as the class of mail most commonly used by the public, has generally had a simplified rate structure. The other classes were established according to mail content: second-class consists of newspapers and magazines, third-class encompasses other printed matter and merchandise weighing less than one pound, and fourth-class mail is either merchandise or printed matter that weighs one pound or more. The addition of these classes allowed the post office to adopt more complicated rate structures that would take into account factors affecting handling costs—such as the weight of the piece and the distance it would be conveyed. Second-class mail receives preferential rates because the dissemination of information through newspapers and other publications is considered to serve the public interest.

The post office has played a vital role as a pioneer and major user of all systems of transport as each was developed: the stagecoach, steamboat, canals, and railroads; the short-lived pony expressPony Express; and airlines and motor vehicles. It also helped subsidize their development. A traveling post-office system, in which mail could be sorted in transit, was introduced experimentally in 1862, and it made railway mail service the dominant form of mail conveyance well into the 20th century. The gradual reduction of passenger train services during the 1930s led to the birth of a highway post-office service in 1941. Both of these services declined rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s. Railway post-office mileage was reduced from 96,400,000 in 1965 to 10,100,000 in 1969, and the number of highway post offices in operation during that period fell from 163 to none. Conversely, annual ton-miles of airmail flown grew from 188,103,000 in 1965 to more than 1,000,000,000 by the 1980s, indicating the significant trend toward air transportation of regular mail without surcharge.

The United States maintains the largest postal system in the world, handling almost half the world’s volume of postal traffic. To deal with the problem of increasing deficits and to improve the overall management and efficiency of the post office, the U.S. Congress approved the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, signed into law Aug. 12, 1970. The act transformed the Post Office Department into a government-owned corporation, called the United States Postal Service. Congress no longer retains power to fix postal tariffs (although changes may be vetoed) or to control employees’ salaries, and political patronage has been virtually eliminated. Government subsidies continued on a declining basis until 1982, after which the U.S. Postal Service itself no longer received a direct subsidy from Congress. An indirect subsidy is still paid for certain mailers, however. These mailers, primarily nonprofit organizations or small publishers, pay lower rates than others, with Congress making up the difference in cost. The corporation has authority to raise capital to modernize its equipment and buildings. It is also subject to competition from private companies, a situation that in 1977 led to the introduction of Express Mail, which guaranteed overnight delivery.

The availability of adequate funds for its mechanization and automation program has allowed the post office to benefit considerably from its sustained effort in research and development. More than half of all letter mail is handled by preparation and sorting machines, a trend greatly assisted by the ZIP (Zone Improvement Plan) Code program, which has come to be almost universally used.

Great Britain

The development of the British Post Office post office up to the reforms introduced by Rowland Hill has already been described. After 1840 the volume of postal traffic increased enormously and by 1870 had reached 10 times its prereform level. The growth was fostered by the introduction of new facilities, such as registration and postcards, and of preferential rates for books, printed papers, and samples. Financial services were also expanded: a savings bank was established in 1861, and postal orders were introduced in 1881 to supplement the money order service taken over from private interests in 1838. In 1883 a parcel post service was established.

The sweeping social reforms of the 20th century have given the post office an additional role as the chief payment agency for social security benefits, beginning with old-age pensions in 1908. This has been expanded to provide a variety of payments and also to collect large sums for state insurance schemes. The scale and range of financial transactions have been further boosted by the establishment in 1968 of the post office’s banking arm, National Girobank, which provides an improved money transfer arrangement for the settlement of bills, as well as an account banking system and loan facilities.

Another important 20th-century trend has been the gradual recognition of the post office’s role as a commercial enterprise rather than as a government revenue department. The process of achieving full commercial status took an important step forward in October 1969, when the post office became a public corporation. The British Telecommunications Act of 1981 divided the post office into two corporations, one for postal and banking operations and the other for telecommunications. This law also has provisions for the suspension of the post office’s monopoly in certain categories of mail, allowing private companies to compete with it.

To maintain quality of service economically by removing the need to handle nonpriority mail at peak periods, a change to a two-tier system of letter classification was started in September 1968. The system abolished the complex preferential rate structure for printed papers and similar material—based on the contents of correspondence—and substituted the more relevant criterion of priority. The sender indicates the urgency of the item as being high (first-class) or lower (second-class) and pays on this basis, which simplifies the work of accepting the mail.

As in a number of other postal administrations, the sorting of mail has been gradually mechanized since the mid-1960s, with some 80 mechanized offices replacing more than 600 offices. The key to mechanization is an alphanumeric postal code that provides for sorting by machine at every stage of handling, including the carrier’s delivery route. The coding equipment translates the postal code into a pattern of dots by means of which machines can sort mail at eight times the speed of manual sorting.

The post office transports mail by road, rail, and increasingly by air. More than half still travels by rail, using an extensive network of railway traveling post officesIn 2003 the Royal Mail announced that it would discontinue distribution by rail, a move that drew protests from transport unions and environmental groups. The post office, however, signed a contract with a private freight hauler the following year to continue the tradition of “mail by rail” in Great Britain. To improve service and to enable next-day delivery for remote areas, letters are flown each night either by scheduled or chartered aircraft. New services based on communications and computer technology have been introduced. The Intelpost facsimile service operates nationally and with many other countries. An electronic mail system enables data for large mailings to be transmitted to local centres for enveloping and delivery.

France

The chief stages in the pre-Revolutionary development of postal services in France have already been described. With the Revolution the system of farming, or selling the right to operate a postal service, was abolished. In the years following the 1789 Revolution, the postal and stagecoach services were reorganized into a Directorate of Posts, which became a national monopoly organization on June 16, 1801. After a brief return to the farming system, a general Directorate of Posts attached to the Ministry of Finance was created in 1804. During the 19th century, the service developed to keep pace with the Industrial Revolution, notably through improvements in administration and transportation. The first French postage stamp was issued on Jan. 1, 1849, thereby introducing the principle of prepayment as well as simplifying the rate structure. The scope and range of the postal administration’s activities widened in the 19th century to include postal money orders (1817), registered letters (1829), parcel post (1881), the savings bank (1881), and postal checks (giro; 1918). During these years the post also took advantage of the newly developing methods of transport. Rail transport, for example, introduced in 1841, was so successful that by 1892 it had become an established means of conveyance; postal steamships served more than 100 ports; and bicycles and, later, motor vehicles were provided for postmen’s collection rounds. In the early 1900s a full motor vehicle service was set up for the conveyance of mails in Paris.

The knack of turning technological innovation to good account was repeated with the airplane. The first airmail flights within France began in 1918, and in 1919 an irregular route was established between Avignon and Nice; by 1935 a network of routes linked the main French cities. During that period, the exploits of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Juan Mermoz, and other pilots of the Aéropostale airline, founded by Pierre Latécoère, served to establish an overseas network with French West Africa and Latin America.

World War II severely disrupted the postal service, and the German occupation forces exerted strict control over mail conveyed within a homeland that had been divided into virtually separate zones. The reinstatement of night airmail service in 1945 marked the beginning of a period of rapid reorganization for the postwar French postal service. Eventually the propeller-driven aircraft was replaced by relatively quiet turbojets, carrying 20 times the amount of airmail dispatched in 1948. Additionally, the postal service acquired its own custom-built rolling stock, which is used on the high-speed train run between Paris and Lyon. Daily mail traffic has grown by some two and a half times since the early postwar years, and, to cope with the increased volume, work began in the late 1970s on a network of mechanized sorting centres.

To speed up and reduce the cost of processing this huge quantity of mail traffic, the French postal service introduced a two-tier system in January 1969, thus enabling the customer to choose the priority of service desired by paying an appropriate charge. The postal service also entered the express mail market with the Postadex service, which operates with more than 50 other countries, and a national and international facsimile transmission service (Postéclair) has been established. An electronic mail printing and delivery service is being developed. The banking and savings service has also embarked upon a comprehensive program involving the microcomputerization of virtually every aspect of local office operation, as well as actively exploiting memory-card technology.

Germany

Postal organization in Germany remained on a relatively small scale until the latter half of the 19th century because of the numerous and fragmented sovereign states. The need for a more widely based postal system had been met, to a certain degree, since the 16th century, when the Thurn and Taxis postal service was begun. The fragmented political state of Germany, in fact, allowed the Thurn and Taxis organization to survive until 1867, when its last privileges were acquired by the postal service of the North German Confederation.

The unification of Germany under Prussia during the second half of the 19th century, culminating in the establishment of the German Empire in January 1871, was followed by the creation of a German postal service in the same year, under a law establishing a state monopoly for conveying letters and newspapers. In 1924 the postal administration was accorded a considerable degree of financial autonomy, which allowed it to conduct business in a semicommercial manner, while still taking account of national economic and social factors in determining rate structure and pattern of service. The post office has developed a complete range of normal postal and financial services and an extensive postal passenger transport network and carries out various social security, revenue, and other agency functions.

Mail is transported chiefly by rail, but there is also an extensive complementary postal road network and an important night airmail service. The air service, inaugurated in 1961, carries letters and postcards without surcharge.

The present-day operation of the German post office has been affected by three major factors. First, there has been increased competition, which has brought about the adoption of customer-oriented business policies, along with appropriate reorganization. As a result, the post office entered the express mail market with overseas (Datapost) and inland services and introduced the surface air-lifted (SAL) parcel service to overseas destinations. Second, rapid technological development has taken place. This has been an agent of change in a number of ways: a new general messaging service, incorporating different forms of electronic mail and the traditional letter mail, is under development; entirely new services such as cash dispensing, interactive videotext, and money services based on memory cards have been introduced; and the post office has exploited modern technology to increase its administrative efficiency and ability to compete. The third factor is the extension of the postal system to serve former East Germany.

Italy

A long history of organized postal systems in Italy began with the cursus publicus of the Romans, but a modern national postal system was not established until 1862, when the long process of unifying the former small sovereign states into the new Kingdom of Italy had been completed. The new state postal service was given a monopoly for the collection, conveyance, and delivery of letters, printed papers, and newspapers, and a uniform tariff was established. The monopoly was surrendered for printed papers and newspapers in 1873 but was extended to cover parcels up to 20 kilograms in 1923. A registration service also began in 1862, and postal orders were introduced, extending on a national scale a service that had been made available to the public in the former Kingdom of Sardinia as early as 1845. The Post Office Savings Bank, set up in 1875, and the postal check service, founded in 1917, are other important aspects of the postal service. The post office also acts as an agency for the payment of such social security benefits as state pensions and various other grants.

Railways are the chief means of mail transport, although their use has declined since 1965, while road and particularly air transport have increased significantly, with the need for next-day service between major cities, such as Milan and Palermo. The Italian postal mechanization program moved forward significantly after the late 1970s. In the larger cities mechanized centres have been constructed in which electronic address-reading equipment processes certain mail for delivery.

Former Soviet Union

Following the October Revolution of 1917, postal services in the Soviet Union underwent important development, particularly in the Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, where the number of post offices eventually increased to 30 to 40 times that of the 1913 figure. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, state enterprises and individual customers alike were served by a network of some 90,000 post offices, about three-fourths of which were located in rural areas that prior to 1917 had little or no service.

Airmail was especially important in the U.S.S.R. because of the vast distances involved. It accounted for about 60 percent of all postal traffic, which totaled some 54,500,000,000 items annually. Airmail continues to be central to the postal systems of such Soviet successor states as the Russian Federation.

Prompt delivery of central press publications had been achieved by facsimile transmission of text, in some cases by satellite, for decentralized printing. These facilities contributed, in the early 1980s, to a significant increase in the volume of periodicals handled.

All types of mail were processed by a national network of large sorting centres. Work in public offices was being mechanized in various ways on a large scale, as exemplified by the national automation of postal order operations. Increasing use was made of computers at all levels of administration, particularly in mail handling and transport. Postal research efforts were centred on improving productivity, staff working conditions, and service to the public.

China

The first use of a postal system in China was under the Chou dynasty (c. 1111–255 BC). A reference by Confucius in the late 6th century demonstrates that it was already renowned for its efficiency: “The influence of the righteous travels faster than a royal edict by post-station service.”

By the late 3rd century BC the postal network consisted of relays of couriers, who changed their mounts at staging posts about nine miles apart. This network was considerably enlarged following the opening of new territories in Central Asia under the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220), during which time contacts were made with the Romans, who, it was observed, maintained a postal system similar to that of the Han. Further improvements were made under the T’ang dynasty (618–907). During this period the number of staging posts increased, and correspondence could be conveyed by road or by river. Administered centrally by the secretary for transport under the Ministry of War, the postal service underwent periodic checks for quality of service. It was possible for urgent documents to be conveyed up to 93 miles in a day. The Sung dynasty (960–1279) instituted a parallel express service for military correspondence, its couriers regularly traveling as far as 124 miles in a day and even more in cases of extreme urgency. The postal network that had evolved under the T’ang and the Sung was to prove a valuable base for organizing the posts under later dynasties. In the late 13th century Marco Polo revealed to Europe the quality of the Chinese postal system under the Yüan, or Mongol, dynasty (1206–1368). Nothing comparable existed in Europe at the time.

Until the end of the 14th century, the post was used purely for the conveyance of official documents. At the beginning of the 15th century, private post offices for the use of traders appeared, conveying private correspondence and arranging payment transfers. During the middle years of the Ch’ing dynasty (1644–1911/12), there were several thousand of these private post offices. In 1896 the Imperial Post was created and organized along European lines, and the old staging points that had functioned for more than 3,000 years were phased out. The new state system gradually absorbed the business of the private companies, although the last one did not close its doors until 1935. The last of the foreign post offices (maintained by Britain, the United States, France, Germany, and the Soviet Union) was withdrawn by the end of 1922.

When the Republic was proclaimed after the 1911 Revolution had overthrown the Ch’ing dynasty, the service was renamed the Chinese Post. In 1914 China joined the UPU. Development of services was extremely slow, however, because of internal strife and eight years of resistance to the Japanese invasion. Thus, on the eve of the founding of the People’s Republic, there were only 4,868 postal establishments throughout the whole of China, of which 463 alone were in country areas. Postal transport was minimal by present-day standards.

One month after the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, 1949, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications was established. On the mainland this administration reorganized the postal service, known thereafter as the People’s Post of China. Much was accomplished in the years that followed. The mainland postal network grew to more than 3,000,000 miles of roads, railways, and air routes centred upon the capital, Peking. It reached into every corner of the land to serve remote towns and villages where prior to 1949 the postal service hardly had been known. Letter mail has increased fourfold since the late 1940s.

Postal research centres set up during the 1950s have actively exploited new technology in the design and manufacture of specialized equipment for the postal service. Notable examples include sorting machines using optical character or bar recognition (OCR or OBR) and computer- and microprocessor-controlled sorting machines.

India

The earliest reference to an official postal system in India was made in the 14th century by the Arab traveler and historian Ibn Baṭṭūṭah, remarking upon the organized official service of mounted couriers and runners. The system was brought to its height during the 16th century under the great Mughal emperor Akbar, with a network of 2,000 miles of post roads. Two centuries of political turmoil, without a strong central authority, destroyed this courier system. It was not until 1766 that an official post was reestablished to serve a new ruling power. It was made available for public use in 1774.

In 1837 the Imperial Post was established and granted a monopoly to provide efficient postal communications between the seat of government at Calcutta and the principal provincial towns. Within the provincial districts a complementary local service was maintained. In 1854 the basis of the modern Indian Post Office was established when these parallel systems were merged under a director general. A uniform postage rate was then introduced, a step of particular significance in so vast a country.

International postal relations developed rapidly after the establishment of a weekly steamer service between Bombay and England in 1867, with India becoming a member of the UPU by 1876. At the same time, the post office began to expand the range of services provided to the public: COD in 1877, an insured service in 1878, and money orders in 1880.

Internal communications were improved to keep pace with the progress made in these other fields. The “bullock train”—the Indian equivalent of the mail coach—gave way to the growing network of railways. A regular traveling post-office service was introduced in 1870. Although experiments with airmail conveyance started in 1911, a regular inland service did not begin until 1932. Rapid expansion followed in 1949. A complex night airmail network connects all major cities, carrying a growing percentage of the mail. Railways have retained much of the traffic as a result of speedier train services, although motor vehicles have become the dominant carrier of mail.

More traditional forms of transport—the foot runner, horse, mule, camel, bullock cart, and bicycle—still help distribute mail to many of India’s villages. More than one-half of these now have daily delivery of letters, and almost all have at least weekly delivery.

Pakistan

Although Pakistan did not exist as an independent sovereign state until 1947, its postal history extends to the official postal systems established by Muslim emperors. Particularly noteworthy was the network of post relays at caravansaries (inns) established by the emperor Shēr Shāh of Sūr in the early 16th century. Under British rule in 1852, the province of Sind had the distinction of being the first region in the subcontinent to adopt a uniform letter postage rate.

On becoming independent, Pakistan was faced with a particularly difficult problem of postal communications because its eastern and western regions were separated by 1,000 miles of Indian territory. The growth of civil aviation services and maritime links overcame the initial difficulty. In 1952 an airmail service was introduced between East and West Pakistan in which letters and postcards were carried without payment of surcharge. This concessionary airmail system was extended to cover the internal mail service of both regions in 1959. The post office made use of the entire network of the national airline to connect 29 key points throughout the country. The service for printed paper and parcel mail was improved in 1962 by the introduction of direct sea-mail links between Karāchi and Chittagong.

The creation of Bangladesh out of East Pakistan in 1971 allowed Pakistan to improve its internal mail services, especially in rural areas, where three-fourths of the post offices are located. Postal facilities were greatly expanded throughout the country.

The post office is run on a commercial accounting basis but with strong emphasis on its function as a public utility. Postal traffic has grown rapidly. To improve its capacity to deal efficiently with the continuing growth, the postal administration has pursued a carefully considered and moderate policy of mechanization. At some of the busiest offices, machines designed to facilitate the acceptance of registered mail have been introduced. To speed up the handling of mail in sorting offices, electromechanical sorting machines have been installed at Karāchi and Lahore. All major post offices now use electrically operated stamp-canceling machines, as well as franking machines.

Japan

Although official and private systems of communications had existed in Japan from ancient times, it was not until 1870 that the creation of a comprehensive government-operated postal service was proposed. The idea was put forward by Hisoka Maejima, often called “the Father of the Post” in Japan. It was rapidly accepted by the government, which set up a service between Tokyo and Ōsaka on April 20, 1871, and extended it throughout the country in July 1872. In 1873 the postal service was proclaimed a monopoly and private courier systems were prohibited, a uniform postal tariff scale was adopted, and postage stamps and postcards were introduced. The first official overseas mail service was established in 1875 with the United States. International postal relations expanded rapidly, and in 1877 Japan became a member of the UPU.

Other landmarks include the introduction of a parcel post service in 1892, express delivery in 1911, airmail in 1929, and the achievement of a special accounting status on semicommercial lines in 1934.

A distinctive feature of the postal scene in Japan is the special New Year’s Mail Service, introduced in 1900. Operating partly for the benefit of charities, this provides for the timely delivery of billions of New Year greetings.

The shortage of manual labour and the growth in postal business resulting from the country’s rapid economic development have also led to the adoption of an extensive mechanization policy. To facilitate this process, a postal code address system was introduced in July 1968. Japanese-produced segregating and sorting equipment, including automatic postal code reader-sorters, has been installed at major post offices throughout the country.

Postal services in the developing countries

The establishment of efficient and comprehensive postal systems in the developing countries is important internationally as well as from the purely domestic viewpoint. Successful maintenance and progressive improvement of international postal service require the effective cooperation of all member countries of the UPU.

The internal need for a good postal service is sufficient in itself, however, to justify a high priority. A countrywide network of post offices provides government with many points of contact with its people for implementing administrative programs in such fields as social security, taxation, and public information. When its operation is properly developed, the post office may also become one of the principal employers in a country; it may help to promote economic growth through its need for buildings, vehicles, and equipment; and it has the potential to become a major user of transport services. The employment potential of a postal system is evident from the fact that the percentage of the working population engaged in providing postal services is generally several times higher in developed than in developing countries.

An efficient postal service, in addition to promoting national cohesion, provides an essential infrastructure for the expansion of industry and commerce. Postal money transfer and savings services are particularly valuable in developing economies, where banking facilities are limited. They may generate large resources that can be used for public investment.

Postal administrations in developed countries have long appreciated the importance of collaborating in the improvement of postal services throughout the world, and this participation in postal technical assistance is an aim embodied in the constitution of the Universal Postal Union. In addition to fostering bilateral assistance between members, the UPU itself has, since 1964, taken part as a specialized agency in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). UPU activities in this field are monitored and realigned as necessary at each postal congress.

In view of the rapid expansion of postal business in most developing countries, the training of staff is a most urgent need. The UPU’s initial activity has, therefore, been largely devoted to this field. The needs of individual countries are evaluated by traveling postal experts attached to the International Bureau in Bern. In addition, expert aid is provided for the establishment of national training schools for postal workers and regional centres for middle and higher management staff, such as those set up in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and in Bangkok and Damascus. Special instructor-training courses are conducted in Britain and France, as well as in multinational schools in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where seminars are also held for higher grade officials. Specialist aid is also provided to evaluate operational and organizational needs and subsequently to enlist UNDP assistance in meeting them. The missions of experts are thus directed either to the postal services in general or to a certain sector of postal activity. Some larger projects may include overall postal organization as well as postal training; such projects have been undertaken in Ethiopia and Niger. Fellowships are awarded for overseas study of specialized subjects, such as international mails, philately, and, in particular, instructor training. Although the UNDP provides the major share of technical assistance funds, the UPU has increasingly supplemented these from its own resources to meet the increasing demand for assistance from its members. Moreover, a considerable amount of aid is given directly by developed countries within the framework of their own bilateral technical assistance arrangements.

Many developing countries are not able to provide even the minimum scale of postal facilities. To underline the pressing need for improvement and to provide a yardstick for future progress, the UPU has adopted, for the Second and Third United Nations Development Decades, certain key planning objectives, covering management, quality of service, promotion of its financial services, and improved public information. These are to be carried out to favour, in particular, the least developed countries.

The international system

International mail is a key means of furthering economic, social, and cultural links between nations. The international postal system is in itself an outstanding example of worldwide organization and mutual trust. A postal administration relies completely upon the postal authorities of other countries to play their parts in ensuring that its foreign mails reach their destination.

International cooperation in this field has been greatly facilitated by the Universal Postal Union since 1875. It has built a comprehensive international organization, with a membership composed of numerous sovereign states and several dependent territories. The postal administrations that are not represented generally follow the rules of the UPU.

These fundamental rules of the international postal service are to be found in the Universal Postal Convention and General Regulations and have been little changed since adoption of the Bern Treaty. The first basic principle is that all member countries form “a single postal territory for the reciprocal exchange of correspondence.” From it is derived the principle of freedom of transit: every member country guaranteeing to respect the inviolability of transit mails and to forward them by the most rapid transport used for its own mails.

Another important principle is that the charges for letter-post items are not shared. Since 1875 each country has retained the postage it collects on international mail. Although intermediate countries are paid for transit service, the country in which the mail is delivered receives no payment. This principle was adopted in order to minimize the need for complex international accounts and was justified on the supposition that a letter normally generates a reply. Certain developing countries, however, have found themselves at a considerable disadvantage under this rule, due to an excessive imbalance between incoming and outgoing mail. To remedy this, the 1969 Congress of Tokyo provided for compensatory payments in such cases.

As a further measure of simplification, the convention prescribes international postal charges, as well as agreed tolerances, and specifies weight steps, limits of size, and conditions of acceptance for letter-post items. Disputes between postal administrations, which usually concern allocation of liability for the loss of registered or insured items, are to be settled by arbitration. The convention is completed by two other basic documents: the Final Protocol, which allows member countries to register certain general and specific reservations to the provisions of the convention; and the Detailed Regulations for implementing the convention. Apart from these obligatory documents, there are a number of optional agreements concerning services, such as parcel post and cash on delivery. The provision of a registration service is compulsory under the convention.

Mention should also be made of the constitutive acts of the union that prescribe its general aims, its organization, its financial structure, and the rules of membership, namely, the constitution and its general regulations.

This comprehensive framework of international regulations is regularly revised to take account of changing circumstances and technical advances. This is the chief function of the union’s quinquennial congress. Between congresses, the continuity of the union’s work is ensured by its elected Executive Council and its permanent office in Bern, the International Bureau. The bureau acts as a clearinghouse for the settlement of international accounts and for the exchange of information between members, especially notifications of important operational and organizational changes. Problems arising in the technical, operational, and economic fields are studied by another permanent organ, the Consultative Council for Postal Studies (CCPS). Regular contact is also maintained with other international bodies, such as the International Telecommunications Union and the International Standards Organisation.

The UPU Constitution authorizes member countries to establish restricted unions, a provision that enables regional groups such as the Arab, African, and Asian–Pacific postal unions to conclude agreements aimed at improving postal services between their members by such means as reduced rates of postage or the elimination of transit fees. These agreements are more easily achieved on a limited regional basis than on a worldwide scale, and the restricted unions have a valuable role in the task of the UPU, which is, basically, to improve international postal service by simplifying its organization and reducing its cost.

Postal technology

Technological progress in postal transport

Postal administrations have been among the first to utilize new forms of transport. They have often applied considerable technical skill in maximizing the benefits to be derived from progress in this field, particularly in originating the traveling post-office concept and apparatus enabling express trains to pick up and discharge mails without slowing. They have also developed their own transport systems to combat traffic congestion in certain busy cities, such as the pneumatic tubes of Paris, New York, and other cities and the automatic underground railway, opened in 1927, that links London’s chief mail centres to railway terminals.

The advent of aerospace and telecommunications technology in the mid-20th century gave rise to research aimed at adapting this technology to postal systems. Experiments have been conducted using ballistic missiles to transport mail, but this remains a novelty because of costs and the problems of reusability and accuracy. Advances in computer and message transmission technologies are, however, being utilized by postal administrations.

Since 1980 public facsimile services have been available in a number of advanced postal administrations in various parts of the world. The United States, Great Britain, France, and Sweden were among the first countries to introduce tele-impression services, whereby bulk correspondence in electronic form is transmitted to regional postal printing centres for enveloping and delivery.

Automation of mail handling

Since the 1950s there has been a marked intensification of research and development efforts to apply technology to the handling of mails, especially in countries faced by manpower problems and higher labour costs. The wide variety of projects undertaken in many countries and the progress made have been summarized in CCPS studies.

Actual implementation has generally been slower than expected. There have been good reasons for this. Primarily, most postal administrations, being government agencies, are subject to strict control of their capital investment programs. Second, mail traffic patterns—with marked peaks of work—make economic utilization of machines difficult: the introduction of measures to counteract this problem takes considerable time. Similarly, the introduction of postal address codes and the standardization of sizes of envelopes and cards, which are prerequisites for mechanical handling, are relatively slow because of difficulties inherent in the change of procedures.

Materials-handling equipment

Postal systems continue to rely heavily on human labour for bulk materials handling and distribution, both at loading bays and between work processes within sorting centres. New mail centres, however, are normally built in the style of factories and include all appropriate materials-handling equipment.

Equipment used for loading and unloading sacks of mail, rigid containers, and loose parcels includes mobile belt conveyors, roller conveyors, forklift trucks, mobile and fixed cranes, and table lifts. Handling equipment within buildings includes chain conveyors; horizontal and rising belt conveyors of all types, for the transport of loose letters, packets, and trays of letters (notably used for continuous clearance of public posting boxes); tow conveyors, which allow wheeled containers to be hooked onto a fixed-path underfloor traction system; bucket or pan elevators; and chutes and other gravity devices.

The use of a wide range of equipment is necessitated by the varied handling characteristics of different types of mail at particular stages. Buffer-storage facilities, in the form of ramps, hoppers, and moving belts, have to be incorporated to compensate for normal postal traffic fluctuations. The smooth distribution of traffic through the system is often monitored by closed-circuit television, which allows effective centralized control. Automatic regulation and recording, using a variety of sensing and counting devices linked to a computer, are the ideal. Modern systems-engineering techniques are thus able to ensure a carefully planned continuous mechanized mail flow with maximum productivity benefits.

Segregating machines

Mail collected from branch post offices and street mailboxes, although for the most part made up of ordinary letters and cards, also contains small parcels, newspapers, magazines, and large envelopes. These items, because of their size or shape, cannot be handled on machinery designed for the normal-sized letter and have to be segregated from the majority of standard “machinable” letters. Owing to its varied characteristics, most packet mail has to be manually stamped and sorted, although its movement between work processes may be fully mechanized. So-called packet sorting machines are, in fact, essentially conveyor systems for distributing manually sorted mail.

A commonly adopted type of segregator consists of a laterally inclined rotating drum, into the upper end of which a regulated flow of “mixed” mail is fed from a storage conveyor. Letters within a thickness standard, but of excessive length or breadth, are picked out by various simple mechanical devices installed on the conveyor belt that eventually delivers machinable letters to the storage stacks of the facer–canceler equipment.

Facing and canceling equipment

Facing is the process of aligning letters so that all will have the address side facing the canceler, with stamps in a uniform position. The process is normally combined with a separation of the mail into at least two streams, letter and printed-paper rate or first- and second-class, to allow priority handling for one of the streams.

Facer–canceler machines perform these processes by passing letters through sensing or stamp-detecting units, which identify the presence or absence of a stamp on the side of the envelope facing them, and, when present, its position. Sensing units are also designed to separate mail in the priority class from nonpriority mail by identifying the stamp or commonly used combination of stamps representing the basic postage rate and manipulating selector gates accordingly. This identification is usually achieved by printing distinctive indexes on the stamps in normally invisible, phosphorescent or luminescent inks that are sensitive to ultraviolet radiation emitted by the sensing unit.

Coding and sorting machines

For manual sorting of letters, each operator normally uses a device with between 40 and 50 pigeonholes. This has been found by most administrations to be the optimum arrangement in view of the limited arm span and “memory” of the sorter. The development of various types of postal codes was aimed at making the sorting of a coded letter a mechanical process for the operator by dispensing with the need to memorize a sorting plan. To be totally effective these schemes need complete public cooperation, a requirement that has been difficult to achieve.

Postal administrations have responded to this dilemma by concentrating research on using an operator only to impress the postal code on each letter, employing phosphorescent or magnetic ink patterns that can be read by a sensing unit attached to a sorting machine. After the code has been impressed, the letter can be sorted at any subsequent stage by high-speed automatic machines, which are no longer utilized at the pace of a single operator and indeed can take the output of several operators. Furthermore, any second sortation required—even at an intermediate office or where the code includes the necessary information to letter carriers’ routes at the delivery office—does not need further manual operations. Another potential advantage of this method is that letters may be directly encoded by the mail-processing machines used by large-volume mailers.

Optical character recognition

The ultimate aim in automated sorting has been to perfect a machine that can read some or all elements of the address on letters. Research in this field has been conducted in most of the industrial nations with sophisticated postal services. The immediate aims of these national research programs vary insofar as the type of character to be recognized is concerned: printed, typewritten, or addressing-machine characters; stylized handwritten scripts; and even ordinary handwriting. Some administrations require the machine to read a purely numeric code, others an alphanumeric code, and others the names of towns or regions. Several different techniques are used for the basic task of pattern matching in identifying the characters. For example, the observed character as a whole may be compared with matrices registered in the memory of the machine. Or the different traits of the character observed—vertical or horizontal strokes, curves, etc.—may be analyzed and their combination successively compared with a series of models registered by the computer.

An optical character reader (OCR) can be designed to either directly sort mail or mark it with a machine-readable code so that sorting at subsequent stages can be carried out by high-speed automatic machines. In 1965 the U.S. Postal Service began experimenting with an alphanumeric OCR. By the early 1980s the service had developed a machine capable of scanning up to three lines of an address, verifying the postal code, and imprinting the letter with a routing code.

Research in the United States subsequently has concentrated on various systems that print a machine-readable bar code to allow for high-speed automatic processing to individual carrier routes or blocks of addresses within carrier routes. In 1983 the U.S. Postal Service began deploying OCR’s with this capability to major post offices throughout the country. The postal service regards this application of automation, combined with the use of ZIP+4 (a nine-digit postal code) by business mailers, as a major means of keeping postal costs under control as mail volumes expand.

Numerical speech translator

Another line of research being pursued in the United States is the development of equipment that translates five- and nine-digit ZIP codes and sorting-code numbers spoken by an operator into instructions for a sorting machine. Since this system obviates the need for a keyboard, it leaves the operator’s hands free, making it particularly valuable in the operation of parcel- and sack-sorting machines. It also eliminates the need for keyboard training of operators. The testing of the equipment includes determination of the effects of regional speech variations, background noise, and operator speech fatigue.